Tests of Merit
by Aranlassar
Summary: I am a part of a Star Wars group known as the Bounty Hunters Guild, and this is a collection of my entries in the Writing Competitions of the Kabal Authority Games. These are all stand alone stories, posted oldest to newest.
1. Standed

Tests of Merit:  
Stranded  
"You are not getting away from me this time, my pretty, oh no you're not." The Felinoid bounty hunter known by most as NightKlaw thought to himself, as he stalked his prey as silently as the predatory cat that his species looked similar to, his eyes fixated on the thing that would be his prey to the exclusion of almost anything else. "You may have gotten lucky the last couple of times I've spotted you today, but you're mine this time."  
It is interesting to note that what the bounty hunter was so intently stalking was not some traitor or a rebel or even a notorious criminal that had a large bounty on his head, but what appeared to be a deer or elk the size of a small hover car was the object of his attention. Right now the animal was more important to the hunter than the person with the largest bounty in the known universe, mainly because he could eat the animal but would probably not be able to get the bounty if he eats the person.  
And that was overlooking the obvious fact that he, Jernai Teisfel, and Garik Hazid were currently stranded on some planet with no way off and no way to request help.  
They had been sent on a mission to return a wanted criminal to a small planet for trial, when said criminal revealed that his transport was extremely more dangerous than the mission briefing had indicated. Jernai's freighter Hobbes, the only starship they had at their disposal, had been taken out by a barrage of extremely powerful laser and disruptor bolts from a supposedly "unarmed" transport. The three hunters had managed to survive the crash landing, but the ship and most of their food and supplies seemed to be a total loss.  
The idea had quickly gone from being trying to build a small ship to escape on to building a communications device capable of sending out a distress call for someone, anyone, to rescue them, and as far as Jernai was telling him when he returned with what little game he could find that it would take a while for him to even scrap a very basic comm. unit together. Since Jernai was so busy scrounging for parts for their only feasible means of being rescued, and Garik was generally guarding his fellow Human with the only energy weapon they had at their disposal, that meant that NightKlaw, and NightKlaw alone, was largely responsible for keeping the three of them fed.  
Which was quickly becoming a nearly impossible task for him to accomplish, as most of the wild life of the area realized that the strange two-legged furred creature was a predator that was to be feared above all others. Berries and roots were quickly becoming a staple of their diet, and the more they grew to dislike that the shorter their tempers became. It was his fierce desire that this animal would not only supply them with meat for a while, but that said meat would cause the steadily growing tension between the three to at least return to the levels that they had been before the crash.  
When the worst thing they had to deal with was the very basic fact that two members of the team of three were from Thunder Kabal, but NightKlaw was a part of Daichi Kabal, and the Kabal Authority Games were about to start yet again. There was always at least a little tension amongst members of different Kabals, despite the fact that they were part of the same group, and that tension only increased the closer the beginning of a new KAG drew. And, yet, they had chosen to send a team comprised of members of two different Kabals only a few weeks away from the beginning of KAG 13.  
NightKlaw shook his thoughts out of the past and back into the present as he reached for the crude knife he'd been hunting with for the week they'd been stranded on this planet, determined to not let such a large source of meat get away from him this time. The weapon was small, almost too small for the hunter to even feel comfortable calling it a dagger, and wasn't nearly as good as the weapon he'd been issued upon graduating from the Academy as a Blade, but Jernai had needed THAT knife for his work and left this one to the hunter to hunt with. Most of what he'd lost had been due to the fact that he had to get too close to wild animals, with their sensitive senses, to be able to kill them with said dagger; they learned of his presence, somehow, before he could even bring the weapon to bear sometimes.  
NightKlaw eased himself into a slight crouch; similar to a sprinter's starting pose, as he prepared to rush his would-be meal with all of the speed his feline nature could give him and hope it was enough. The last four times he'd tried to get this beast it had managed to escape, outlasting his endurance once and flat-out beating him in terms of pure speed a second, but he was determined that the fifth attempt would be a successful one. He would not fail again; he would not let it beat him again.  
"Tonight we feast on the meat of...whatever the hell you are." NightKlaw thought to himself, unconsciously swallowing the drool that was threatening to overflow out of his mouth at the thought of all of the meat the thing had to have.  
He would not get to get a chance to pit his skills against the beast's now, though, as Garik Hazid charged out of the opposite side of the clearing while yelling as loudly as his lungs would allow. The animal took one look at the charging Human and ran away, even as the hidden bounty hunter glared at Garik and promised to give him a slow and painful death the first chance he got once this was all over. As the wild animal ran away though, for reasons that NightKlaw neither understood but wasn't willing to question, the animal turned to run near his hiding place.  
"Gotcha." The hungry Felinoid thought in triumph, giving the charging animal a toothy grin that he knew it couldn't see even as he decided that he would only seriously hurt Garik instead of killing him. He had, even if probably unintentionally, helped NightKlaw to have a better chance of killing the animal that would be their next meal.  
NightKlaw judged the beast's speed as it ran towards him, trying to get a feel of when he should spring if he wanted to land on the creature's back in the position he wanted: where he could get at the back of the animal's head and back with relative ease. It was the easiest way to stop a running animal, especially with the pitiful weapon that he had at his disposal, even if it wasn't a very easy maneuver to attempt at all. But, still, he had to at least try to bring the beast down someway.  
Right as the animal ran past NightKlaw the bounty hunter heaved his body into the air, propelling himself up and onto the back of the charging animal like he'd wanted. He was forced to grab onto the animal's fur almost as soon as he landed, though, as the wild animal immediately started to do everything in its power to get whatever was on its back off of its back. Getting as good a hold as he could with his left hand, and wrapping his legs around the animal's stomach as best he could, he immediately began to thrust his weapon into the animal as rapidly and powerfully as he could.  
This violent dance lasted for only a few short moments, but it might as well have been an eternity for the two players locked in this bloody combat. This combat that ended, ironically enough, with the animal escaping by slamming NightKlaw into a tree hard enough to snap the thick structure in half. Needless to say, all the dazed and hurting hunter could do was watch as the animal ran off, blood spilling from the wounds inflicted on its back, probably to die where the one who had inflicted such fatal wounds could not enjoy the spoils of his victory.  
"Looks like its berries and roots for us again." Garik commented dryly, as he stepped up to the almost prone form of NightKlaw. "Why couldn't you kill that thing, Klaw? Is one pesky little deer too much for you?"  
"I would have had him if you hadn't spooked him, Garik, and don't call me "Klaw." The name is NightKlaw, and I would appreciate if you used it." NightKlaw replied, his voice a low growl, as he levered himself to his feet with the help of what was left of the tree that had lost him his prey.  
"Well, there's nothing we can do about it now, so lets head back to camp. It was running in the general direction of the Hobbes; its carcass could be waiting for us." Garik said, almost carelessly, as he started off towards the clearing created when the Hobbes crashed on the planet.  
"I doubt it, but it wouldn't hurt to go check up on Jernai. The sooner he gets done, the sooner we get the hell off this place." Was the response, as the tired and irritated hunter followed his Human companion at an almost sullen pace.  
"One would think you don't like it here, Klaw. I thought all cats liked forests?"  
"These things don't smell right, nothing here smells right, and I don't like it. The only thing I can remember ever smelling like this was the time I snuck into the homes of one of the Lord Governors of Fellinus VII and got chased into one of his artificial forests; everything was artificially created and actually smelled very similar to this place."  
"You think this place was created artificially? That's preposterous!"  
"Maybe, but that's the only time I can remember seeing that variety of tree smelling the way it does; Neisellem tressilis normally has a hint of a chocolaty smell in addition to the standard smell of a hardwood because its sap is similar to the junk chocolate is made from. This bugger doesn't have that smell, though, and that's the only reason I can think of." NightKlaw said, shrugging, as he pointed out a tree with his knife as they passed it.  
"Interesting. I didn't know you knew any botany."  
"I don't really know botany, but we learn to rely more on smell than sight to identify things because of our astigmatism. We're taught how a lot of things smell before we're allowed out of the house, and those of us who are a part of the Shadow Clan learned a lot more than most."  
"There's that term again. WHAT is the Shadow Clan anyways?"  
"Can't tell you, or I'ld have to kill you if I did."  
"But we're both hunters."  
"Loyalty to the Clan comes before all else; the Commission knows of that fact and are still willing to let me be a hunter."  
"Is there any fear of your loyalty to this Shadow Clan interfering with your duties as a member of the BHG?"  
"Don't worry about it; the Shadow Clan is mostly focused on Fellinus VI and VII and not on the universe as a whole."  
"That's good." Garik said, right as they neared the hunk of junk that had once been a freighter before it crashed into the planet.  
"What's good?" Jernai asked, looking up from the remains of a very familiar animal that he'd been preparing.  
"Told you the thing would head here." Garik said, to the surprised look on NightKlaw's face. "You should have trusted me."  
"You almost let the thing get away, if it hadn't run right towards me. That's almost too convenient, if you ask me, on both accounts."  
"What do you mean, NightKlaw?"  
"He's just finding all these reasons why this place could be artificial, and not real, Jernai. Starting with the trees not smelling right, and now the animal having not done what he'd expected."  
"What's the odds of a wild animal running right into our camp, especially since we wrecked here almost a week ago? Animals, or at least wild animals, would be trying to stay away from places like that; AND the thing ran right at me even though it should have noticed my smell before I got the chance to attack him and run away."  
"He's a smart one." Jernai told Garik, a hint of respect in his voice. "It took me a couple of more days before I started noticing the things that weren't right."  
"Took me at least a week longer than it took him, but we don't have those hunting instincts he does so I guess we can be forgiven."  
"Definitely."  
"What the hell are you two talking about? You're making this sound like this was nothing more than a test."  
"That's because that's exactly what this is, NightKlaw, a test of your skills." Garik told him, as Jernai pulled out a portable comm. unit from the bag he'd kept by his side since the crash.  
"All Trainees are brought on a "mission" similar to this, but not all pass it."  
"What would have happened if I didn't pass?"  
"Nothing really; the test is really just a test of your observation skills and nothing more. If you had failed, if you hadn't noticed all the reasons that this couldn't have been real, then I would have pulled this thing out in one or two weeks, said I had rigged it myself, and called the transport with you having never learned the truth."  
"What do I tell the others, though? If you want this to remain a secret from Trainees, and I assume you do, I shouldn't say this was a test; I can't say we caught him, though, and the bounty was alive only."  
"I said he got away after shooting us down."  
"I said we shot each other down, but he didn't walk away from it and I couldn't retrieve the body."  
"Then I'll say we assume we shot each other down, but we couldn't find evidence of him or his ship having crashed on this planet."  
"Sounds good to me; this planet's got enough water for it to be believable that his ship could have landed in the middle of one of the larger bodies of water." Garik told him, approvingly, as the transport Jernai had radioed with the comma unit started to land a few feet near them. "Oh, and your hunch was right, most of the stuff growing on this planet was created artificially."  
"I still say it smells funny." NightKlaw grumbled, as the trio headed toward the transport waiting to take them off of the planet.  
"And your room doesn't?" Garik asked, causing Jernai to chuckle softly.  
"How would you know, Thunder Boy, and it doesn't smell bad to someone with a nose as sensitive as mine. And just laugh it up, Jernai, you'll get yours when Daichi beats you in the KAG's."  
"We'll see, Klaw, we'll see." Was all Jernai said, as the rear hatch of the transport swung closed behind them, the transport already starting to take off.  
  
  
NightKlaw (Aranlassar)  
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars; I wish I did but I don't. I don't own the Bounty Hunters Guild, I'm just a member, and while I'm not sure who owns it exactly it is run by the Dark Prince Trench who deserves much honor and praise...if only for the fact he'ld probably shoot us if we didn't respect and praise and serve him. Jernai Teisfe and the Hobbes is the property of whoever Jernai Teisfe is in real life, Garik Hazid is owned by whoever he is in real life, NightKlaw, the War Dancer Clan and the Felinoid race belong to me. Anything else that doesn't belong to me that I forgot to mention belongs to whoever owns it, and if no one claims it then I will.  
Notes: During the Thirteenth Kabal Authority Games (KAGs), this was my entry in its Writing Competition. I can't remember the place it earned me, I think it was around 15th or so, but it didn't earn me any of the prized positions, and certainly not THE prized position in the competition, but I'm not complaining. NightKlaw is the ID of my Bounty Hunters Guild (BHG) character; those desiring to join the BHG (www.thebhg.org) be sure to tell them that you was referred by JRNY/NightKlaw/Daichi/BHG -H (P). 


	2. Tears of Snow

Tests of Merit:  
Tears of Snow  
As the planet of Fellinus VII filled the forward view screen of the Tiden Freighter Cat's Claw, I gave a toothy grin as I gazed upon the world that had been my birthplace and home for most of my twenty-three years. It had been too long since I'd last been home, and I'd missed my war-torn planet more than I would have thought possible even if I had been gone longer than almost four months. It was too bad that I was here on official Guild business and not a vacation, but I had quickly accepted that vacation was a word that typically wasn't in a bounty hunter's vocabulary...at least not if he wanted to make a name for himself that is.  
I reached down to retrieve the data tape that I'd been given by Tactician Oxxider before leaving Daichi's base, wondering why I was to be briefed by recorded message before reaching the planet instead of in person before leaving as was the norm on most missions. I didn't waste too much time pondering the question before shrugging and placing the disk into a player and settling back to see just what I was supposed to do during his short visit home. Oxxider had been told that it involved my people, which was why they were sending me to do it, and that it was important; it looks like I was about to find out if that was true or not.  
The first thing that appeared was not the Tactician's face, or a text description of the mission, but a prompt asking for both the ID and password of the person viewing the message. I promptly entered both into a keypad and hit the enter key, at least a little reassured about the importance of the mission if it was password-protected. It quickly checked the entered data, and brought up an image of Tactician Oxxider on a screen in front of me as my ship continued on towards his home planet.  
"Greetings Hunter NightKlaw; I hope that when you're viewing this you're nearing the planet Fellinus VII. Otherwise you will be promptly shot upon returning to base, for disobeying an order, but you got to do the job either way or you'll be shot for failing to complete a mission." Lord Oxxider said, laughing at what he considered to be a joke but I thought was a very serious matter; it was my life that was being threatened after all. "This mission involves the Felinoid race, as you've been told, and we felt that it would be best to send a Felinoid there to check it out. You got job for the obvious reason; you're the only Felinoid to join the Bounty Hunters Guild at the moment. Here's the mission.  
"There's a faction of the War Dancer Clan, which you're a part of, that is planning a revolt against the limited Imperial presence on both of the Felinoid home worlds. It's believed that the faction is trying to expand its influence in both the War Dancer Clan and the normal Felinoid military, in order to gain the soldiers the rebellion's leaders thinks it'll need to win the war quicker, and the Empire wants us to make sure that rebellion never comes to pass. The factions being run by a pair of Felinoids, high up in the hierarchy of the War Dancer Clan, and they're the only things keeping this rebellion talk going. Your job, if you haven't guessed by now, is to kill the leaders of the rebellion. You will be expected to turn in proof of you completing your mission in order to obtain your credits, but you should have expected that for a dead only mission. These are your targets: SylverFire and SnowKlaw of the Eighteenth War Dancer Division."  
Almost as soon as the Tactician named to two people that would be my targets their pictures replaced the image of Oxxider, but I didn't need to look at the side-by-side images to know what my prey looked like. I had to consciously force myself to not turn away from the screen, to look if only for some foolish hope that the pair I was supposed to kill wasn't who I knew they were, but those hopes and dreams were dashed as soon as my brain allowed me to realize just what I was looking at. The two people I were to kill were the two people I had thought they were, even if they had transferred from the Twenty-first War Dancer Division to the Eighteenth sometime after I left the planet.  
SylverFire was a male Felinoid almost as tall as I am, his body fur a mixture of silver and fire red, and was firmly muscled from the tips of his ears to the points of his feet. He was incredibly strong, stronger than I was by far when I left to join the Bounty Hunters Guild, and often showed that off by sticking to melee combat instead of using projectile weapons of any kind. He was a friend of mine, one of the few that I had allowed myself on my quest for revenge against the Dogmians, and I almost considered him to be a brother. It would be hard to go against that sense of kinship to kill him, to kill the man that had saved my life countless times in the past.  
If it was going to be hard to kill SylverFire because he was my friend and almost brother, then it was going to be several times harder to kill the completely white female Felinoid that went by the name of SnowKlaw. The reason for that wasn't that she was a friend, even though we are both very good friends to each other, but that she was my fiancée and we were supposed to be wed in two months. I had requested leave of duty to do so, but it appears that I am going to have to retract that leave if I complete this task I mean, it's hard to marry a woman that you've killed no matter how much you loved her.  
I slumped down in my chair as I pondered what I should do about this mess I had somehow managed to get myself in this mess, even if it hadn't been intentional on my part. I didn't know if it really wasn't intentional of the Commission to have me kill old friends of mine as a show of loyalty, and I didn't know if I would be able to do what the Guild's Commission has sent me to do when the time came. This was a friend and a lover that I was to kill, not some person I had no history with, and I had to make a decision if love was more important than the money I was going to be paid for doing this mission and my position as an Assistant Journeyman in the BHG.  
Love or money. Family or the Guild. NightKlaw of Fellinus VII or Hunter NightKlaw of Daichi Kabal. Questions that I had known on a logical level that I was going to eventually have to answer, but I had no clue that I was going to have to answer them so soon. I had hoped that it would have been years before I was forced to decide between the Bounty Hunters Guild and the life that I had lived during my life on the planet of Fellinus VII, but it looked like the time for me to answer these questions a lot sooner than I had hoped and, to a lesser extent, than I had feared.  
The answers to the question of which was more important, love or money, would determine the path that my life was going to take for the rest of my life. If I choose to put love and family over money and the Guild, then I could be potentially slitting the throat of my career as a bounty hunter at most or at least severely limiting how far I would advance within its ranks. But, should I choose money over love, then I would be essentially condemning myself to a love devoid of the presence of at least one man I considered to be a brother and the one woman I loved with all of my scarred heart, and possibly even more people I cared about to various degrees by the time I chose to either quit the Guild or was retired by Death's icy embrace.  
This was going to take a lot of thought and consideration on my part; I hoped I had enough time left to decide upon an answer before I reached my home world. And, for a reason that I knew extremely well, the thought of returning home was no longer as pleasing a thing as it had been a few minutes ago.  
  
I tried to smile as I was warmly welcomed into the home of SnowKlaw and SylverFire, noting with a sense of fleeting pleasure that they were still living in the home that I had bought for them before leaving to join the Bounty Hunters Guild. They were obviously happy to see me, not at all bothered by the suddenness of my arrival, and the fact that they were so eager to welcome me into the home that I had bought them was an arrow that pierced my heart. They either had no idea why I had come here for, or they were confident that I could not do it if they did know, but I had no idea which one was correct and really had no desire to know which was true.  
As SnowKlaw settled me into a chair in the living area of the house, I found myself doing my best to etch their features into my memory should they not take the option that I intended to give them. As the beautiful Felinoid woman moved to get us drinks, I stopped her with a light hand upon her arm before gesturing to her to take a chair. I wanted to get this over with as quickly as I could, so that I could try to get on with my life as best as I could.  
"As much as I wish I could say otherwise, I did not come here for personal matters but for business from the Bounty Hunter Guild." I said, taking a deep breath to try to ease my frayed nerves that hadn't any more this time than the other times I'd done the same thing before. "The Empire knows of the revolt you're planning, and they told the Guild to stop it, and."  
"Your leaders told you to stop us. Are we to be arrested and handed over to the Empire?" SylverFire asked, voice now tight and closed, and the fact that he hadn't denied it left an icy fear in my chest the hope that my two friends weren't involved in the rebellion had lived scant moments earlier.  
"You are supposed to be killed, to remove the head of the snake so to speak before it becomes a danger. I have an offer, though, that may let you keep your heads. I..."  
"No, no offers. We want the Empire off of Fellinus VII and VIII, and we're not embarrassed about our part in the rebellion. You are here to kill us for that part, and I will not hide out of shame in order to save my neck." SylverFire interrupted, his voice hard and cold as he refused my offer without even hearing it.  
I desperately turned toward SnowKlaw, hoping against hope that she would at least hear me out, but that died a quick death as she deliberate shook her head in a firm no. "I agree with SylverFire, Night, and will die for my cause like I told my followers I would if I had to. I wish it didn't have to be this way, not that I am afraid of dying for what I believe in but that I don't want you to be the one to have to kill us."  
"No fear of that, because I can't do it. I was giving you an option to hide the fact that I can't force myself to kill you two, and I still can't." I sighed, rising to my feet slowly. "I'll be going now; if I wait until I get back to Daichi Headquarters to tell them I failed then it should give you time to get ready for whoever they send to do what I couldn't."  
I turn to leave, only to hear a pair of angry growls that I quickly identified as the sounds my two friends made when angry. I quickly turned to look at them again, only to see them draw weapons from their clothing that I hadn't even noticed in my eagerness to see them. They stood up and slowly moved towards me, even as my sixth sense started to scream at me that something important was about to happen in the next few moments.  
"What's going on, guys?" I asked nervously, as I slowly backed away from the two other Felinoids in the room.  
Neither Felinoid answered me with words; they simply leapt at me with loud war cries. I tried to over power them without hurting them, but my actions was hindering my efforts in fighting them out and allowed them to score more hits on me than I got on them. Finally, sorrowfully, I had to make a decision to use lethal force against them if I was going to make it out of here alive, so I threw the pair away from me even as I deftly drew my Desert Eagle pistol from its holster and put a bullet into each of them.  
I watched as the two Felinoids that were once my closest friends fell to the ground dead, and had to suddenly fight off the tears that were threatening to fall at the sight of the two people I loved most in the world lying dead on the bloodied floor of the building I had bought as a gift for them. I slowly approached the limp form of SnowKlaw and knelt next to her bloodied white form, tears blurring my eyesight despite my best efforts to keep those tears from falling. I reached down to stroke her cheek softly a few times, whimpering wordless pleas to her and SylverFire to forgive me for doing what I had done to them, and wondering just how long it would take for this event to start to circulate in the nightmares that prevent me from ever having peaceful sleep.  
I gave another sigh and gathered the evidence I needed to prove that I had done what I had been sent to do, but stopped by the cold form of SnowKlaw once more. I gave the already stiffening body a quick hug, doing my best to ignore her coldness and the unnatural stiffness her body was gaining, and gave her one last kiss before leaving the building to head to my ship. I had made a decision over love or money, about which was more important to me, but the decision I had made had been relatively useless in the end.  
I had chosen love over money, and had been prepared to live the rest of my life with the results of that decision if the Guild had learned that I really hadn't killed SylverFire and SnowKlaw. But when it came down to life or death for me, I had quickly chosen that I wanted to live. I don't know if I can live with the results of that decision, of the one that my life was more important than the ones of my friends, and I doubt I'll ever know for certain.  
Maybe, when I know the answer to that question, I can look myself in the eyes and tell myself that the decision I had made hadn't been motivated at least partially by a love for money that was stronger than my love for them and convince myself that the lie is true.  
  
  
NightKlaw (Aranlassar)  
Disclaimer: Like I said in the last "Tests of Merit", I don't own Star Wars and/or the Bounty Hunters Guild and related topics. NightKlaw, SnowKlaw, SylverFire, the Cat's Claw, the War Dancer Clan(as far as I know anyways) and the Felinoid race are still mine to do with as I wish. Oxxider does not belong to me, he belongs to himself and only himself.  
Notes: This is the response to the Writing Competition of the Fourteenth KAGs, where the topic was quite simply "Love or Money". I took it as a challenge to write rather love or money was more important to my character, as that was the only thing I thought they could have been asking for, and decided to put NightKlaw in a position where he would have to choose money (and duty to the BHG) over his love for a friend/brother and his would-be mate. This was actually hard for me to write, and I didn't really know how it would turn out until the very end. This technically won me third place in the event, because it was a tie between me and another hunter, but I like to say that I won second because it strokes my ego and my ego can use all the boosts it can get. 


End file.
